Welcome to the Winter Solstice 2021 issue of Eternal Haunted Summer. The theme for this issue is “night.”

There are many ways to understand and experience the night. Is it simply the absence of sunlight, the world facing away from its source of life and nourishment? Or is it more? For some of the contributors to this issue, the night is a source of comfort, while for others it is a time for fear. Night is also a time and place for worship and rest, as well as transformation and reconciliation. Adventures and terrors and wonders can be found in the darkness that cannot be found in the day. Myths and legends and fairy tales become more real, more present, more immediate. In many of the poems and prose poems and short stories here, night is a time to acknowledge endings and new beginnings, ancestors and descendants, death and (re)birth, and the Deities who govern the dark half the sky and the dark half of the year.

We are honored to feature the works — intimate, heart-breaking, humorous, fascinating, and terrifying — of such an array of talented poets and authors. We hope that you enjoy this issue as much as we do, and that you will come back to these writings again and again.